You can set properties for your datawindow columns (one is Background.Color) in the Clicked() event of the datawindow control. If you want this behavior to be on all datawindows in your application, then create a user object that inherits from "datawindow" that you will use instead of the basic datawindow on all of your forms. So instead of dropping "datawindow" controls on your forms, you would have a u_dw or some such user object and drop those on your forms and that way you can have an inherited level to control global behavior on all of your datawindow controls. Even better, take a look at the PFC (PowerBuilder Foundation Class) library which has a "u_dw" control with some great functionality already included.